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Four high-profile Canadians to donate their brains for research into concussion effects in women

By MORGAN CAMPBELLSPORTS REPORTER

Thu., May 10, 2018

Olympic bronze medallist Jen Kish retired from rugby last month, but the uncertainty she feels over her long-term cognitive health remains active.

The Edmonton resident suffered five concussions over 13 years of high-level rugby and she worries that lingering effects from the injuries will diminish her quality of life.

From left, Cassie Campbell-Pascall, Fran Rider, Jen Kish and Kerrin Lee-Gartner are believed to be the first female Canadian athletes to publicly pledge their brain to a Canadian research centre. (Toronto Star / GETTY IMAGES)

“I’m turning 30 in July and I’m already having a memory deficit,” she said. “I’m slurring my words. It’s scary. I’m supposed to be in my prime.”

Thursday the 29-year-old Kish became one of four Canadian women to donate their brains to Toronto Western Hospital’s Canadian Concussion Centre to further research on the effect of trauma on women’s brains.

Before Thursday, the Canadian Concussion Centre had collected 44 brains of deceased athletes — all men. But the centre’s director, Dr. Charles Tator, pointed out that to advance concussion research means finding a broader cross-section of specimens, which in turns mean including the brains of female athletes in various aspects of research.

“It’s quite fantastic that so many stars have come forward to say they want to do something about (concussions),” said Tator, who works out of Toronto Western’s Krembil Research Institute. “Maybe this will provide a significant breakthrough.”

Campbell-Pascall said she was skeptical when she first learned last year that concussion researchers hoped to focus on the brains of female athletes. She figured the doctors were just retreading old stereotypes about women being weak and feared the misconception would discourage girls from getting involved in sport.

But at Tator’s invitation, she intended a daylong symposium at Toronto Western Hospital last spring dedicated to concussions in female athletes, and says the event changed her thinking on gender and sports-related brain trauma.

“The fact is we don’t know what the differences are because a lot of the research has been done on men,” said Campbell-Pascall, who is now an analyst on Hockey Night in Canada. “I thought I’d better put my brain whether my mouth is.”

In recent years, concussions and their long-term effects have become an increasingly prominent subplot in men’s contact sports.

Last summer, Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman and mathematics scholar Jonathan Urschel of Winnipeg retired at age 28, citing concerns over chronic brain trauma. His decision followed the publication of a study revealing that of 111 brains of deceased NFL players donated to Boston University researchers, all but one tested positive for CTE, a degenerative disorder caused by repeated blows to the head.

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That same week, Argos linebacker Jonathan (Bear) Woods returned to the lineup after a concussion, and said the research on brain injury risks wouldn’t discourage him.

“I know what I’m doing. I’m playing pro football. I put on a helmet so I can smack another grown man,” Woods said last summer. “I made my mind up a long time ago that I’m playing football. It’s a physical sport.”

But Tator says current research suggests women in collision sports like rugby or hockey suffer concussions at higher rates than their male counterparts do, and that recovery often takes longer for female athletes. Solving that discrepancy requires involving more female athletes in short-term and long-term research, he said.

The brains of athletes who volunteer for post-mortem studies may not yield answers for decades, and the four female athletes who joined Thursday did so knowing they wouldn’t live to see the results of tests for conditions like CTE.

“I’m not donating my brain to get praises,” Kish said. “I’m donating my brain for the future of women’s sport.”

Tator said another recent study on concussion patients’ sensitivity to light from computer monitors involved twice as many female subjects as males.

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